Here we are. One week down. One-third of the way through my 21DSD. And it hasn’t been a bad ride. My planning is paying off, my learning is making those moments when planning didn’t work end up OK, and my focus is keeping everything on track. Pretty cool!

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned so far is that this is possible to do as a normal part of life. And today I added to my “I can do this” list when Pkin, DH, and I went to a movie. As is pretty standard with autism, Pkin has, at various times, had hyper-focused interests in certain things. For awhile, it was female names. DH and would sometimes spend hours each day locked in the same conversation with her:

Pkin: “Is Sally a name?”

DH/Me: “Yes.”

Pkin: “Do you know anyone named Sally?”

DH/Me: Whatever answer was appropriate for whatever name we were discussing.

Her perseveration for the last year or two (the longest one has ever remained the focus) has been all things Japan. She is particularly a fan of manga and, to a somewhat lesser degree, anime. We actually found her a manga drawing class that she started a couple weeks ago (found when I was doing a search for a manga camp this summer with the intent that we would actually travel almost anywhere in the U.S. to get her involved. Luckily, this one is just a couple miles away!). And she loves Hayao Miyazaki and the work of Studio Ghibli.

DH and I remembered seeing a trailer for From Up on Poppy Hill, the new Studio Ghibli film, sometime earlier this year, but couldn’t remember when it was due for release. Last night, I just happened to mention it while we were actually near a computer and DH hopped on the handy interweb to find out. We were thinking it was sometime this summer. It was actually March 29 and was only going to go limited release. Another quick search found that there was one movie theater near us that had it showing on one screen (we live in a suburban area near a major city, which means we have, literally, a couple hundred screens nearby — but only one showing this particular movie). Considering that, we were thinking it probably won’t be sticking around there for long so if we want to see it, we needed to do it now.

So today — a day I had planned to stick close to home, do some work, and dig into a bit of gardening — we instead went to the movies. Usually, this would include a big bucket of buttered (let’s be honest, butter-flavored oil) popcorn and candy. Instead, DH and Pkin had some popcorn with real butter (it was that kind of movie theater) and I had some banana chips and almonds stashed from home. And it was fine! I didn’t miss the popcorn, didn’t mind when they shared a few Sourpatch Kids, and just enjoyed the film.